A Kind of Magic
by Tumblebrutus
Summary: When the kittens are forced to stay inside because of the bad weather, Mistoffelees decides to provide them with some entertainment. He creates their very only magical world for them to play in. It's a world where anything can happen... xx
1. Box of Delights

**Authors Note** _This story is for my twin, Admetus. Hope you like it! :) _

_Thanks for reading, everyone! I hope you like it! All feedback is welcome :) _

_I do not own any of the characters!_

"I'm bored," wailed Etcetera.

It was one of those horrible grey, rainy days and the kittens had been told to stay inside. "If you get wet, you'll get cold and if you get cold, you'll stay cold," Jennyanydots had said, "if I let you go outside you'll all catch cold and you wouldn't want that now would you?" Grudgingly the kittens had been forced to agree with her. They really hated being ill and having to stay in bed for weeks. Then staying inside for a day was surely the lesser of two evils. After all how bad could it be...

After two hours they had played all the indoor games they could think of, had eaten breakfast and had now run out of things to do.

"I'm bored!", Etcetera howled again, "it's not fair! I want to go outside now! I'm fed up of staying indoors! I'm bored!" And with that she threw herself down on the pile of blankets in the corner and burst into floods of noisy tears.

"Shut up, Etcetera!", Pouncival yelled, "we're all bored and you're giving everyone a headache! You're horrible and selfish! You're mean and you're spoiling..." He paused, unable to think of what Etcetera was spoiling, "...everything for the rest of us!"

Jemima, who had been sat trying to comfort the sobbing Etcetera burst into tears as well. "Don't fight! Please don't fight," she sobbed. "I hate it when we all fall out!" She collapsed crying next to Etcetera.

"Would you all just give it a rest!", Victoria stamped her paw, "stop being so stupid and childish all of you! I can't stand it any more! I wish I had someone grown-up to talk to! You're all just so annoying!" And she flounced over to the entrance to the den and stood glaring out into the pouring rain.

Electra felt rather hurt and annoyed by Victoria's comment. She was actually rather fed up with the way Victoria had been acting recently, pretending to be all grown-up and not wanting to play any more. "Well, go away then. We don't want you here anyway. Go and be all grown-up with all your new friends. We don't need _you_!"

Victoria whirled round, eyes glinting dangerously and opened her mouth to make some nasty comment. Before she could say anything a calm voice interrupted: "Are you all maybe getting a bit overwrought stuck inside?" Mistoffelees had poked his head into the den.

"No!", Pouncival said, outraged. At the same moment Electra said: "Yes, probably." They looked at each other and laughed feebly. It wasn't very funny, but laughing was better than shouting at each other.

"There's nothing to do when you're stuck inside," Etcetera explained, "we don't have any toys in here and we don't have enough space to play any of our usual games!" She looked mournful and her eyes filled up with frustrated tears again.

"Nothing to do inside!", Mistoffelees laughed, "what do you mean nothing to do inside?! There's plenty to do, if you just know where to look." He chuckled again. "You're just all looking in the wrong place. Jemima," he turned to the youngest kitten, "open that box in the corner."

Jemima did as she was told and opened the box. It was empty. "Oh. There's nothing in it," she sounded rather disappointed.

"Nothing in it!", the black and white tom repeated, "you kittens never look properly, do you? Look again." He smiled mischievously.

All the kittens peered into the box. The bottom of the box seemed to have vanished. Instead there was now a tiny door leading into a miniature forest. The ground was covered in soft, springy purple moss. The trees had tall blue trunks with beautiful pink and orange leaves and the ground was scattered with rainbow coloured flowers. A stream ran through the trees. It was a wonderful pale pink colour and splashed and gurgled round lilac stones. The sky was a deep sea-green with yellow clouds and a huge white sun.

The kittens were fascinated. "What is it?", Etcetera breathed.

Mistoffelees smiled. "It's a door. You can go through it if you like. Or if that's not what you meant, it's magic."

"Can we go into the forest?", Victoria asked nervously.

Mistoffelees nodded. "It's perfectly safe. Go and have fun." With that he laughed, curled up next to the box and seemed to fall asleep.

"Well come on then," Pouncival got up and crawled into the box. As the only tom, he was determined to go first, just to show that he was braver and more intrepid than the girls. One by one they all followed him into the magical forest...


	2. Rainbow Forest

The kittens stood frozen in the middle of a forest clearing staring around them, their eyes as round as buttons. It felt like a real place. They could feel the moss beneath their paws, smell the flowers, feel the warmth of the radiant white sun, hear birds singing and the stream gurgling – everything.

"It feels so... real!", Electra breathed, into the awed silence.

"I know," Jemima whispered back, "but how can it? It's made up."

Pouncival was the quickest to recover from the shock. "It's magic!", he laughed and with that bounded off into the trees, batting at the swarms of gold and silver butterflies that rose in heart-shaped clouds from the rainbow flowers as he disturbed them. "Are you guys coming, or what?"

Victoria, as the oldest decided she had to be the responsible one. After all they didn't know where they were or anything about this forest. There might be some kind of danger or they might get lost and never find their way out. "Pouncival, come back!", she called out. "You don't know where you're going. What if you get lost?" She looked around her trying to memorize what the clearing they were stood in looked like. The pale pink stream ran through the middle of it, bordered by banks of purple moss, in varying shades and hues. The trees were tall and all looked basically the same, apart from one, which was rather short and bent over like an old woman, with red leaves instead of pink or orange. She decided to remember that tree, as a landmark. Behind them was a cave, hewn out of olive rock. Victoria correctly deduced this was the way out again.

Now she had got her bearings she turned to the others to ask them what they wanted to do, only to find the others were no longer there! Victoria felt her heart start thudding in her chest. Where could her friends have gone? She called out to them, her voice sounding feeble and nervous: "Electra? Etcetera? Jemima? Pouncival? Where are you?"

From behind her in the trees she heard stifled laughter. "Ssh!", someone whispered, but the laughing only got louder. "She'll hear us!"

Victoria was outraged. "Get out here right now! That's not funny! Playing tricks on people like that is just mean!" She stamped her paw on the ground, not caring that it made her look stupid and childish. In fact, she was rather angry that they had made her look like such a fool and forgot to try and act grown-up.

Giggling hysterically, Pouncival toppled out of a nearby bush. "We got her!", he cried, delightedly. The other three soon followed, extracting themselves from bushes or squeezing out from behind trees. The four kittens rejoined their friend in the centre of the clearing.

"Are you ok, Victoria?", Jemima asked. She felt rather bad about playing such a mean trick on her best friend and wished the others hadn't made her join in. "We didn't mean to actually frighten you. Please don't be upset!" She put her paw round Victoria's shoulders.

Etcetera was bouncing up and down and had forgotten about the trick already. "Can we please get going? We've got a whole forest all of our own to explore and you guys are hanging around here wasting time!" She darted over to the stream and back again. "Come _on_!" Taking a massive leap, she jumped over Electra and prodded Pouncival in the back. "Tag! You're it!" With that she sprinted off into the forest, along the banks of the river, being chased by Pouncival.

After a brief glance at each other the remaining three kitten set off after their friends. "Hey, wait for us!", Electra yelled after Etcetera and Pouncival's retreating backs.

As they played the kittens ran, tumbled and jumped deeper and deeper into the forest, moving ever further away from the exit. Not that it bothered them much. The forest was beautiful and they often stopped their game to admire some of the wonderful things they saw. Jemima stopped to examine a rose bush with flowers the size of houses, that towered high above the treetops, Pouncival noticed a family of green foxes rummaging for food at the foot of a tree. Etcetera was distracted by a waterfall, that sent gems, diamonds and crystals cascading off a huge rock face into a deep pool hundreds of feet below. Meanwhile Electra and Victoria had discovered a deep pool of water, where the little stream was blocked by a dam. It had broken it's banks and flooded a large area of forest, so it formed a lake with trees growing up out of the water. Trees weren't the only thing growing it the water. Giant blue mushrooms with purple spots were sticking up out of the pink water. Some were small, some were huge, taller than the surrounding trees. They looked very bouncy...

A tree grew by the water. It had a smooth trunks that sloped down into the water. The other side of the trunk was rough, almost like a ladder. Electra grabbed hold of the lowest branch and began to pull herself into the tree. Once at the top she let herself slide down the smooth side and landed with a loud splash in the water. "Come on Victoria! The water's warm and that tree is like a slide!" Electra turned and began to swim over to the nearest mushroom.

She pulled herself up onto it. "It's bouncy!", she exclaimed with delight and began jumping up and down.

Victoria immediately wanted to join in, so began to climb the tree slide. "Pouncival, Jemima, Etcetera! Over here! Look what we've found!", she giggled and let herself slide into the water. Electra was right. It was very nice and warm. Despite wanting to climb on the mushrooms she decided to go for a swim first.

Soon they were joined by the other three, who began splashing each other and laughing. "This is great!" Pouncival cried, jumping off Jemima's head onto the biggest mushroom. He tried bouncing on it. "Wow! Look how high I can jump!" He took another leap and was catapulted up above the treetops into the air. He landed again and let out a whoop of joy. "You have to try this! It's amazing!"

Etcetera was closest to the mushroom, so she was the first to try and climb onto it. Pouncival leaned down to try and help her, but she was just to small to get up. "How do we get up?", she huffed, frustrated, "it's not fair!"

"I have an idea," Jemima suggested, "what if we jumped on smaller mushrooms? We could bounce onto the big one!" The other three agreed and so each kitten found herself a mushroom within jumping distance of Pouncival's mushroom.

"If we all jump together on this one I bet we'll get so high!", Pouncival was excited, "come on. Jump!" He began to hop up and down.

"On three!", Victoria suggested, "one... two... THREE!" And she launched herself into the air. Electra, Etcetera and Jemima did the same. As one they all flew towards Pouncival, who cowered in the middle of his mushroom, hoping not to get landed on.

As they landed the mushroom sagged right down under their combined weight, until the kittens were at water level. "Well, that was...," began Etcetera. At that second the mushroom sprung back to it's full height, firing the five kittens up, up, up, higher and higher into the sea-green sky until they were up amongst the yellow clouds...


	3. Cloud World

Jemima screamed. The kittens were so high now, that they could have reached out and touched the clouds, had they wanted to. But their flight was slowing and Jemima knew what was coming. What went up had to come down.

It was the thought of going down again, falling all that way, that scared her. What if they missed the pond and landed instead on the some of the many hard, lilac rocks below? She squeezed her eyes tight shut and tried not to move. If she didn't move, maybe she'd fall straight and end up back in the warm, safe lake. _Or maybe not_, a nagging voice in the back of her mind whispered. Jemima tried to ignore it and concentrated on staying as still as a statue.

All to soon she felt the familiar sensation of falling. Slowly at first, but then faster, gathering speed all the time. She could hear her friends around her screaming and shouting and knew they were as terrified as she was. They were all going to get hurt, really badly hurt...

Suddenly, however, the sensation was gone. Jemima kept her eyes screwed shut. She couldn't feel the ground beneath her paws, she also wasn't lying or sitting on anything, but she was definitely no longer falling. It felt like she was somehow floating. But that was impossible! Plucking up the courage, she opened one eye and looked around in shock. What she saw made her jaw drop and her eyes become round as coins.

The five kittens were still high up in the sky. All around them were huge, towering, yellow clouds, one of which they appeared to be sat on!

"Look!", Jemima exclaimed, "we're sat on a cloud!"

Pouncival, who was lying flat on his stomach covering his head with his paws, peeped up at her. "Are you sure?", he asked in a timid voice.

"See for yourself," Jemima answered.

Pouncival slowly uncovered his eyes and looked around. "Wow!", he breathed, "we really are sat on a cloud!" Excitement got the better of him again and he jumped up and began leaping around. "Look, I'm floating!" He galloped to the end of the cloud and back, then spun in a circle and began to scamper around his friends who were still lying down. "What are you waiting for? Get up!"

With a shriek of delight, Etcetera jumped to her feet as well. "This is amazing!" She raced off after Pouncival and back to the other girls. "Seriously, you have to try this. It feels so weird, like running on thin air."

The remaining three kittens got to their feet and soon all five were running around and screaming and playing. It was Victoria who wandered over to the edge of the cloud and peered over the edge. Far, far below she could see the rainbow forest shining in the sunlight. It was far larger than she had expected and seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. It was a beautiful riot of colour, that completely fascinated the young queen. Never before had she seen anything so beautiful. For a long while she sat staring down at it. A shove from behind brought her back from her daydreams.

It was Electra. "Not joining in, Victoria?", she asked. "We were about to start a game of hide-and-seek. It would be so much more fun, if..."

She didn't manage to finish her sentence. Jemima interrupted: "Have you ever played that game, where you try and spot shapes in the clouds?" The others nodded, so the little black kitten continued: "I've always wondered how those shapes got into the clouds. When I was smaller I used to think someone lived up there and sculpted them out of cloud. Maybe we could...", she tailed off.

"...give it a go?", Etcetera suggested, "well it can't hurt, can it." She walked over to a fluffy mound of cloud. "How do you think I should start? Just sort of...play with it?" She looked a bit unsure and poked the cloud tentatively. Where she had pressed her paw into it a paw print was left in the cloud.

"It works!", Electra cried, "we could have a competition! Who can make the nicest cloud statue! Then we'll all vote and the one with the most votes wins!"

The others readily agreed to this rather fun sounding challenge and spread out across the cloud, so each kitten had enough space to make their cloud shape.

"On your marks, get set, GO!"

Victoria began to gather as much cloud as she could. She wasn't really sure what she wanted to make yet, but didn't want to waste time standing around thinking about it. The cloud was light as air and hard to hold onto. Like trying to grab hold of a bubble. If you squeezed it to hard, you squashed it and it burst in a thousand tiny droplets of water. This Victoria discovered after a few failed attempts to stack the cloud she had collected. After that she decided to proceed with more caution.

Jemima had chosen to make a bunny rabbit. She wanted it to be sat on it's back legs, holding a carrot. That would be sweet. Glancing around, Jemima saw she was furthest with her sculpture. Everyone else was just collecting piles of yellow cloud, whereas she had already made the bunny's feet and legs. Scooping up some more cloud, she formed it into a ball for the rabbit's fluffy tail.

Etcetera was struggling. She was very excited and was bouncing around enthusiastically. The problem was the cloud needed to be handled very carefully, so as not to break it. The hyper-active kitten was just not gentle enough with it and had already squashed three of her sculptures. She was trying to make a mouse, mainly because she was hungry and had food on her mind. So far all she had managed to make was two holes in the cloud, three heaps of squashed cloud and a mound of foamy yellow, that looked nothing like a mouse.

Electra was having more success, but she was finding it hard to pick up the cloud in her front paws. She kept dropping it and spilling wisps of cloud everywhere, that she then had to chase and try and catch. It was quite tiring work. On the plus side though her sculpture was probably the best, though she thought so herself. It was a statue of Tumblebrutus, that actually was beginning to look quite like him. She had decided to make one of her friends and had somehow thought of Tumblebrutus, though she couldn't put her finger on why she had chosen him in particular. Currently 'Tumblebrutus' consisted of four legs, a tail and a mound of fluff, that she was turning into the body.

Pouncival had lost patience with the whole exercise. He had been going to make a Pollicle, but that hadn't turned out too well. It had ended up looking a bit like a cat that had been run over by a bus. Hence Pouncival's loss of interest. Now he was just swatting a wisps of cloud and daydreaming, staring up at the sea-green sky above him. He glanced around. The girls had all nearly finished their cloud shapes. Suddenly Pouncival remembered it was a contest and he was currently losing. He would NOT be beaten by a queen! It was too humiliating. Quickly jumping up he cast around for an idea as to what to make.

About an hour later the five exhausted kittens were sat in the middle of a ring of five sculptures, grinning happily at each other. "They look great!", Victoria exclaimed, "I didn't think they'd look this good!" She smiled at her friends.

"Are we going to vote now?", Pouncival asked. He was eager to find out if he'd won.

Electra nodded. "Ok, but we can't vote for our own. That would be unfair." She looked around her at their creations. "I vote for Pouncival's." Pouncival beamed.

"Me too," Etcetera and Jemima added. "It's really cute!" Pouncival wasn't sure 'cute' was quite what he'd been aiming for, but didn't really mind because he'd got two more votes and so had already won.

"I vote for Jemima's rabbit," Victoria said, "I think that's way sweeter!"

Pouncival glared at her. "Well I like Etcetera's mouse." This gave him an idea. "I am getting rather hungry."

Some of the others nodded. "We should go down again and find some food." They looked around them and began to search for a way down. After a good five minutes of searching Jemima called out: "Here! I've found something. It looks like stairs!" And indeed, there was a staircase made entirely of cloud leading down and down until it vanished from sight far below.

"Let's go!" And with that she led the way down the staircase, back towards the rainbow-coloured forest, leaving behind Jemima's rabbit, Etcetera's mouse, Electra's cat, Victoria's flowers and Pouncival's fire-breathing dragon.


	4. Cake Town

A good few hours passed and the staircase went on and on, spiralling ever lower, yet the young cats seemed no closer to the ground than when they had set out. It was getting dark and the kittens were getting fed up, tired and hungry. None of them felt like playing or talking any more. They just trudged wearily on down the never-ending stairs. It seemed like a lifetime ago that they had been playing and running around in the clouds.

Now, Pouncival reflected, if he never saw another cloud as long as he lived it would be too soon. His paws were hurting, his eyes were falling shut and his stomach was grumbling. As the walked he dreamed of a nice warm soft bed and a huge meal of rabbit, cooked in onion gravy - his favourite. What he wouldn't give for a plate full of rabbit... His eyelids slid shut and his head began to nod onto his chest and soon he was dreaming, dreaming about food and sleep and playing high up in cloud world, as he had named it.

He was brought back to reality with a bump. Literally with a bump. While sleeping Pouncival had tripped over his own paws and fallen some way down the stairs. The bump was caused by him landing somewhat unceremoniously in a heap at the foot of the staircase.

Brushing dust out of his fur he straightened up and looked around. Behind him was the giant staircase, stretching away into the sky. He could see the girls, looking almost as tired as he felt, rounding the last corner together. To his left and right it was to dark to make anything out, but up ahead Pouncival could see a cluster of lights - warm, inviting lights. Some were perfectly still, while others bobbed and danced. The sound of laughter and some faint strands of music reached his ears. A town! It must be! Pouncival forgot how tired he was in his excitement. Where there was a town there was always food and a warm place to sleep! All they had to do was walk just a little further, then they'd get to rest and eat.

By this time the four little queens had joined him. They too had noticed the lights.

"What do you think they are?", Electra asked, "do you think there might be food over there?"

Pouncival nodded and shared his conclusions with the others: "It's a town. It has to be. I bet we can find food and a warm bed there. And it's not very far to go."

Victoria nodded in agreement. "Pouncival's right. It must be a town."

Jemima, who could barely stay awake, said: "Well, let's go then, before I fall asleep here."

"Or before I eat Pouncival!", Etcetera added with a giggle and bounded off towards the town. She was the only kitten who seemed not to feel even vaguely tired. She was too excited by this whole adventure to need sleep, not to mention the fact she was pretty hyper-active at the best of times.

She was soon followed by her friends, their tired paws dragging on the ground. Electra yawned widely and Jemima actually fell asleep and collapsed in a pile snoring. Victoria bent down, picked her best friend up and carried her down the path towards the town.

The path was made of rock, but it was unlike any rock the kittens had ever seen before. It was white with red and green swirls in it. Strange brown, sticky grass grew by the side of the road. Anything further away, the kittens could no longer make out in the darkness.

The road went steadily on, leading them ever closer to the civilization. It wound in a strange zigzag pattern, sometimes almost doubling back on itself, sometimes turning this way and that before forming a loop and heading back in it's original direction. Still, it didn't take the kittens very long to come to the edge of the city.

In the light from one of the windows the five friends could better make out their surroundings. The path was definitely white and green and red, the grass was indeed brown, but beyond that they could now make out other details. Tall brown trees grew along the side of the path, like silent watchmen guarding the path. They weren't normal trees, though. Not only the trunks, but also the leaves were brown and on some trees you could make out a pattern like on a candle when the wax has melted and run down the sides of the candle, there to harden again. Some of the trees were very dark brown, almost black, some were a mid-brown and yet others were so pale as to be almost white. The trees were not the only strange thing the kittens could now see. A pale golden-coloured stream ran between the trees next to the path. The water seemed to thick, almost sticky. It flowed in a very slow, sluggish way and if the kittens hadn't known better they wouldn't have though it was water at all. There were also muddy puddles of the same golden-colour. The mud however was a deep red and even thicker and stickier-looking than the water. Flowers grew by the roadside and on the banks of the stream. These were a pretty pale-pink or white colour. They looked squashy and in a bizarre way fluffy. Just before the first house a sign was stuck in the ground. The poles supporting the sign were of the same white, red and green colour as the road they had walked along, the colours spiralling upwards in bold stripes. The sign looked a little like gingerbread, the writing was in pale-blue. The sign read: "Welcome to Cake Town!". Beyond that the road continued, lined on either side by houses made up of large pale brown and cream blocks with doors made of the same material as the sign and window boxes overflowing with the strange squashy flowers. Light streamed from all the windows and many of the open doors, inviting the kittens to enter the town.

"This place is amazing!", Victoria whispered, "just look at those trees!" She stared around in wonder. "Should we go in?"

Electra nodded. "Let's go. I can hear music and laughter. That means there must be people. Maybe they'll give us some food."

And so the little procession made their way through the narrow streets of Cake Town, Pouncival and Electra leading the way, Etcetera bouncing this way and that, trying to have a look at everything and Victoria bringing up the rear carrying the sleeping Jemima.

The streets wound this way and that, turned back on themselves, ended suddenly and without warning, branched off into thousands of side streets, formed funny loops that didn't seem to lead anywhere, criss-crossed and zigzagged and were generally very confusing. There were bridges over many of the streets. The bridges were yet more streets and were also lined with funny little houses. Some of the roads were not actually roads at all but steps leading off down the hill with houses on either side. At one point the road they were walking on split into two only to become one again just a couple of houses further along. Several streets seemed to go from nowhere to nowhere. They just started and just ended without leading anywhere. Some streets led to raised platforms on which more houses were built. These roads were narrow with steep drops either side and the kittens didn't dare use them. Yet more streets tunnelled under houses, all of the underground streets lined with houses like the ones above and there were even underground roundabouts and junctions. One road was built up in a giant spiral, it reached high into the air, so the houses there hung off the edge of strange cliff with houses below and above them, forming a massive tower in the middle of the city. It wasn't just the roads that were strange either. The houses were equally, if not more odd. They were all made out of the same large blocks of cream and light brown but that was where the similarity ended. Some were huge and grand with pillars and gardens full of strange plants, some were tiny and crammed into basically no space, some were leaning so much it was a miracle they stayed standing at all. The shapes were also different. There were square houses, rectangular ones, triangular ones, cylindrical houses and even some round ones and one that looked like a giant ball. All in all, it was the weirdest and most wonderful town the kittens had ever seen.

Forgetting how tired they were the cats ran on through the deserted streets searching for the source of the music and laughter. They were running down a tiny, narrow street when all at once they came to a massive open space right at the heart of Cake Town. It was full of the strange brown grass and surrounded by the odd brown trees. Right in the middle was a honey-coloured pond, into which the stream they had seen earlier flowed. Floating in the air, seemingly unsupported, were thousands of diamond-shaped lanterns that glowed in every colour of the rainbow, throwing a mottled, multi-coloured light over the clearing. People were thronging into the clearing, where they stood talking and laughing and singing and dancing all at the same time.

The kittens entered the clearing and were immediately surrounded by people. But these people were like no people the cats had ever seen before. They were much shorter, reaching only to the kittens shoulders. Their skin, if you could call it skin was full of pores, almost like air bubbles. They were many different colours, some were brown, some pale-yellow, others were brown with black spots. They had no hair and their faces seemed to be made of currants and in some cases smarties!

"They're made of cake!", Etcetera shrieked, "I'm right, aren't I?" She turned to the nearest little person who nodded and smiled a curranty smile: "That's right, dear. This town isn't called Cake Town for nothing you know!"

Pouncival let out a whoop of delight. "A city full of cake people! Wow! This is so..." He was lost for words.

Out of the throng another little cake person stepped over to the kittens. It was clearly made of chocolate cake with an orange smartie face. It wore what looked like a pancake toga and a necklace of popcorn. It bowed to the five friends: "Greetings. My name is Jaffa. I am the mayor of Cake Town." The tiny person bowed again. "You will be our honoured guests. Please follow me." And with that it turned round and strode off through the crowd.

After exchanging amused glances the kittens followed. Jaffa lead them over to by the pond where there was a table was groaning under the weight of masses of food. "Please eat," Jaffa gestured to the table. He then went and sat down in a large elaborately carved chair made out of cinder toffee and smiled around him at everyone that passed.

"Come on," Electra told the other four. She lead the way over to the food and took a plate. There was so much to chose from. Sweet dishes and savoury dishes were all piled together on the small table. One at a time the young cats helped themselves to food and sat down in the shade of one of the chocolate trees, for now they realised that was what they were made of.

As soon as they sat down they were surrounded by a group of six cake people, who bowed and introduced themselves as Angel, Dundee, Simnel, Red Velvet, Opera and Madeira. They all wore pancake togas but no popcorn necklace.

"Is everything here made of food?", Jemima asked turning to Simnel.

He smiled at her and nodded. "Yes, we are made of cake, the trees are chocolate, the river is honey, the flowers are marshmallow, the houses are fudge, the paths are made of peppermint rock, the grass is toffee and the mud is jam. Even the snow is made of icing sugar."

"Wow!", Pouncival was impressed, "so if your hungry you can just eat a house or a tree or some grass?"

Angel shook her head. "Not quite. It's forbidden to eat houses, but apart from that yes."

The eleven of them talked for a while longer and the kittens discovered Angel was married to Dundee, Simnel and Opera were married and Red Velvet was their daughter. Madeira was in actual fact the wife of Jaffa, the mayor. They also found out a lot about the layout of Cake Town and the surrounding lands as Dundee was somewhat of a walking enthusiast and had at some point or another walked down every street in Cake Town, which was quite an achievement. He told them all about the forest they had played in when they first got here and a lot more stories besides. About Cake Town and about Cloud World and lots more strange places, like an underwater city made entirely of jewels and diamonds populated by seahorses and a meadow where each flower played a different musical note when stepped on. The kittens were fascinated.

The night wore on and eventually Red Velvet got to her feet and suggested dancing. The kittens were very tired by now but couldn't resist. With their new friends they made their way to the dancing area of the clearing. Lots of cake people were already dancing. The kittens and their six companions joined them. The music was very fun and lively and infectious. Soon all eleven were roaring with laughter and leaping around like maniacs.

All of a sudden they heard a shriek. Suddenly all the cake people were running away. In no time the clearing had emptied. Opera beckoned frantically to the kittens. "Come with me. Quickly!" She was stood in the entrance to a cave, into which all the cake people had fled. As soon as the kittens entered she slammed the door plunging them all into darkness. Somewhere someone lit a lamp.

"What's going on?", Victoria asked.

It was Madeira who answered: "We're under attack."

"Who's attacking you?", Pouncival wanted to know.

"It's Lord Slime's minions," Red Velvet told him, "they're always attacking us and eating our houses or any cake people they can get their nasty, slimy paws on."

Etcetera shuddered. "But why do they attack you? Couldn't they just eat the trees or something?"

Red Velvet shook her head and Simnel said: "They don't like the taste of the trees. They only like cake or fudge, meaning us or our houses. That's why we always have to hide down here."

"But why do they eat you?", asked Electra.

"They invade and eat us because _we are all cake_!" Jaffa had come up behind her and dramatically gestured with his hands as he said 'we are all cake'.

She shook her head. "That's not what I meant. I meant couldn't they find cake somewhere else or eat something else?"

"They could, but they don't," Angel explained, "they are cruel and horrible and enjoy terrifying us."

Pouncival looked angry. "Well we can't let them get away with that!"

"What can we do?", Dundee asked miserably, "if we go near them they'll just eat us."

"We'll make them stop!", Pouncival exclaimed, "they can't eat us!"

Jemima nodded: "You've been so kind to us it's the least we can do!" She looked kindly around at all the cake people. "And besides, I couldn't bear the thought of them eating you!"

The other kittens all nodded in agreement. And Victoria said: "If we can sleep here tonight we'll set off tomorrow!"

Jaffa gestured grandly: "What's ours is yours. We thank you for your help, little cats. Tomorrow we will give you plenty of food and water and I will send Dundee with you as a guide. You have saved our lives!" And he bowed to them, whereupon all the other cake people bowed to.

Madeira escorted the five kittens to a pile of blankets in one corner. "Good night, little ones. And thank you!" She gave each kitten a kiss, before leaving them alone.

"So how...", began Etcetera but she never finished, she had already fallen asleep.


End file.
